Grrl Power #652 – Prepare for Warp 0.00000454
My favorite thing about this page is that when confronted with… whatever that is there in the back shooting at Sydney, let’s call it a world eater apocalypse demon god, her reaction is, “Meh, seeya.”
That thing is probably used to people either attacking it or fleeing from it, but the no look sayonara is probably a new one. There’s a part of Sydney that wants to fight that thing, but she also knows she doesn’t have extra lives to spare while learning that particular boss’s patterns, so she’s exploring other options first.
I know I drew regular word bubbles in these, but Sydney’s mouth isn’t open in any of the pictures, which is a minor comic book pet peeve of mine, and it’s certainly not the first time I’ve done it, but pretend these are all thought bubbles. I mean, she’s just talking to herself anyway.
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Well, either that last ball is an FTL drive (or wormhole generator, or bloater device, or spice snuff box, etc) or this isn’t how she gets home.
I was just thinking that it might be a hyperdrive. Maybe it has safeties that prevent it from working while in atmosphere?
Sound thinking.
Plus Halo’s skill tree shows two separate skill branches, on the flyball, as having skills already selected. Four on one and two on the other. The typical assumption is that the four represent her flight speed. As Sydney can get up to Mach 4, and is one of the fastest flyers in Archon, that seems to be a good bet.
Which leaves the other two to be accounted for. Sadly there are a couple of possibilities. One is that the flyball grants automatic buffeting and bird-strike protection, at low flight speeds (not mentioned in comic, but in one of Dave’s blogs). Then there is the vertigo protection, which we saw dramatically demonstrated.
However these seem to be secondary powers which are freebies. Much like being able to use any of them to punch with. Plus it is consistent with how super powers work, in this setting, in general. All the supers we have seen get the required secondary powers necessary for their abilities to work.
Such as Heatwave being immune to her own heat and fire. And Harem being able to sense if an object is blocking the destination point, for a teleport. Thus allowing her to abort the teleportation.
If this line of thought is valid, a hyperdrive is a highly plausible option, to account for one of the remaining skills. The orbs had to get here somehow. And they seem far to distinctive not to have been noticed, if they were indigenous.
Even if they were protected by the Veil that would not stop supernaturals seeing them. And the Twilight Council seemed completely unaware of them (beyond the press briefing given by Archon, of course, and the covert message that Sydney could penetrate the Veil).
So if the hyperdrive got the orbs to Earth, then there is a reasonable chance that the other skill was astrogation. On account that any spaceship would need to be able to navigate, if it wanted to get to any destination that was not in sight. And even then it is a pretty good idea, if you want to have an efficient flight path.
Given the obvious visual display abilities with the com ball and given the obvious connection between sensors and navigation I’d guess that’s the com ball.
I completely agree that the fly ball likely covers other propulsion requirements.
Yeah, I’m going to agree that the com ball should also have astrogation abilities. Come to think of it, there’s a theory that says space is littered with natural wormholes and you just need some way to find them and to force them open to use them. If the com ball could see spacial anomalies she’d have something to work with.
Given that the four dots represent atmospheric (and possibly orbital/impulse) flight speed, the two dots on the adjacent branch could represent hyperdrive/warp speed. In that case, using the TOS scale where warp ten was the practical maximum, Sydney would be capable of warp four. At that speed, collision avoidance would have to be an included free power, just like the anti-bird strike feature.
Can’t believe some people forgot that she could very well fly in to black hole and survive flying thru it it will cut her travel time in half if and fly herself backwards in time since she currently in the future .
Just mentioning, the idea that a black hole is some sort of portal to another part of space, or even to other dimensions, doesn’t actually have any scientific realism behind it. It’s mostly from the movie ‘The Black Hole.’ The closest thing to what you’re mentioning are wormholes, which according to Einstein’s field equations, would require things like negative mass exotic matter to remain stable or some other exotic means (like, say, magic + a magical artifact called the brane ripper or whatever it’s called – sky ripper, etc).
Black holes are pretty much the opposite though – they have immense mass – that’s the reason why they’re black holes. In fact, the stars which become black holes have to have a pretty large amount of mass in order to even become a black hole in the first place. Just doing a quick google search since I’m a lawyer and not a physicist (although I do have a science background since my primary area of expertise is patent law, which requires me to be scientifically literate with a degree in one of the scientific fields – in my case bio, not physics).
Anyway, doing a quick google search, the mass of a dying star becoming a black hole vs something else is based on the Chandrasekhar limit. If it’s 1.44 solar masses, the dying star turns into a white dwarf, and does NOT generally become more dense after that (which means it doesn’t become a black hole – it just expends the rest of its energy and eventually just sputters out, or becomes brown dwarf, THEN sputters out). Stars above Chanderasekhar limit can become black holes sometimes. From what I’m gathering, a black hole can also form if a neutron star somehow gains more mass. THEN it becomes a black hole singularity.
TL;DR – Black holes are formed by having a lot of mass. Wormholes are formed (theoretically) by having negative mass. Sydney should not try to go through a black hole. Even if she doesnt die or get spaghettified from it, it would most likely be a prison, not a tunnel. :) Then again this is all scifi stuff that we’re talking about, on a webcomic which is also largely scifi…. so I could be totally full of it. :)
One further observation on the skill tree: The tie bar between the flight orb and the PPO is active (looks like the only one that is). Pure speculation, but that may signify that one orb can automatically activate the other under certain circumstances. Since the PPO is an energy projector, it could potentially function as a deflector array in FTL flight (though the shield orb would also be a candidate for that role).
If the ties do represent “combo” functionality, they would overcome some of the limitations imposed by only being able to activate two orbs at a time. One example would be the shield/life support combo, which could potentially be an air scrubber to allow the user to remain bubbled for extended periods without having to manually refresh the atmosphere…
What if the two dots are for atmospheric flight, and there are only 2 more because atmospheric flight is inherently limited. An exponential scale would have 4 dots well into the hypersonic range. That leaves the other track for space travel. There are a LOT of dots left on this track. The four she has may reflect ordinary FTL (warp drive), while the next line over represents something like transwarp or quantum slipstream, i.e. galaxy range FTL, which she doesn’t need yet, for 700 ly. So if she has navigation, which may well be part of the last orb if it is the library computer, she would have a good shot at getting home in a reasonable timeframe even by herself.
There are also variations that could be accomplished by the selecting one of those other buttons. Once activated it could mean that the output on the other side is now a means of showing a hyper speed/ Kinetic indicator . So basically you’ve got a something like conditional formatting. Or possibly each one is the gearshift like on a 10 speed so…
It is definitely appropriate to assume that the orbs got to earth… but nothing indicates that they brought the pilot with them… Sydney may activate it and then find herself in a really bad situation.
Yorp, you left out the fact that anyone with super strength has to have enough invulnerability to withstand their own attacks. The strength to punch through a steel door is useless if you don’t have the ability to come out of it without tearing your hand off.
I only say this because it’s always annoyed me when Mighty Guy rips a steel vault door off its hinges in one paragraph, and then is weak to some guy whacking him over the back of the head. So he’d have died if he dropped the door on his head? Doesn’t make sense!
I only cited a couple of examples, to support my main argument. A comprehensive list would carry on for ages. But here are a few more examples, off the top of my head:
• Maxima granting structural integrity to any object/person she picks up.
• Maxima having an extra force field that extends around her clothes (slightly weaker than the ones protecting every cell of her body).
• Silent Shadow having numerous secondary powers to allow his super speed to work (e.g. countering heat building up, making the body tougher or otherwise countering speed related damage, allowing senses and reflexes to operate at top speed and so on).
• Maxima having similar properties, but even higher as her bullet time is even faster than his speed (although her force field provides some of them already)
• Anvil’s nose boop violating the principle of ‘equal and opposite reaction’. Otherwise she would have sent herself backwards through the wall of the Steak House.
And many more, which I just don’t have time to list.
“So he’d have died if he dropped the door on his head? Doesn’t make sense!”
If a regular person picks up a piece of wood and then drops it on their head it could totally kill them. Don’t see what’s so nonsensical about that part.
PD wasn’t talking about a regular person being hit by the piece of wood, butt hitting the Mighty Guy who was strong enough to rip a steel vault door out
Never discount that temporal or dimensional could be one or both of the other skills discussed that the flight orb has. Considering that they appear to be in a different time or alternate dimension that could be useful, or complete disaster.
I wrote a very extensive thing about her skill tree on the third page of this comment section btw Yorp. Take a look :)
Either that, or she has a point-to-point wormhole generator (similar to her teleportation-via-quasi-astral-projection-slash-scrying thingy).
If the energies involved are potentially harmful to most life-forms and if her shield protects those inside it from those energies, it would make sense that it would have a safety function to prevent it from working in a gravity well.
We shall see, I think.
My guess is navigation is part of the com-ball;
Flight ball has first track is relativistic flight, second track is post-relativistic flight (FTL), and third track is multi-dimensional.
The last ball lets her shoot mini-Sydneys out of her hand, or super-math that lets her adjust the outcome of any mathematical situation by an order of magnitude.
fun page! Now can we fix the cast page?
I don’t think that’ll ever happen, lmao.
Clone DaveB, or do it ourselves
My name is David Brown, and I’m working on the wikia when I have time. I’m moving right now, getting my first house next week. Once things settle down I’ll work on it more.
Is it this one? https://grrl-power.wikia.com/wiki/Cast
I didn’t know that this existed until you said. Thank you! :D
Awesome! Thanks, in advance.
Shortly after that I will go dark myself, whilst emigrating and house hunting. I will not get time to set up any social media yet. Self-publishing drains a lot of time, such as having to get exemption to US taxes (being a Brit I am exempt, but have to prove that to Amazon, which requires a code from the IRS). Even worse on a zero budget, as I can’t farm out any of the stages to companies which offer relevant services.
Then there will be two separate crowd funding sites to set up, which I have done prep-work for. But I’m having serious doubts I can get publicity done, before I go. I intend to do a press-release to every English-speaking media outlet, in numerous countries around the globe. I have researched how to do that, but there is some supporting work I want to do before then.
So I will probably be doing that whilst couch surfing. But I will get in touch, once I have set up a social media account.
Given the choice of fixing the cast page or getting more comic pages, like this, twice a week, every week, without fail, I’m sticking with the current system as my pick.
Maybe Dave could spare a minute and link that to the cast page on the wiki. At his convenience of course.
Yea, DaveB did mention he was thinking about doing that, at one point. I suspect the compilation is that he does not want to risk loosing the code that is already there. So he would need to find a way of safely preserving that. Because, until it is debugged, or removed, the page would still be prevented from loading. And thus would be unable to show any such link.
Plus he is super-cautious about tinkering with anything which might risk loosing the comments history. I don’t know if that is possible, but he probably does not either.
Hypocrites was right. “First do no harm”
Doing nothing runs zero risk. Doing the research to reduce any risk, from uninformed meddling, down to something approaching zero, can be very time-consuming.
It just moved to the wikia:
https://grrl-power.wikia.com/wiki/Cast
Fixing the cast page is the true power of the seventh orb.
Okay, so immediate time travel vorping didn’t happen. The return operation will be interesting to see what DaveB has planned for us.
The tiny blaster creature might is blinded by the blast, but the huge spaceship it came on will not be blinded. Hmmm, out of the fry pan into the fire? I assume that the spaceship has even bigger and more powerful guns…
Also, planet re-entry should be fun times.
well the life support or could have temperature control?
Why would planet re-entry be a problem? Aside from the shield, Sydney can control the speed at which she flies so she can just go slow enough where air friction isn’t a problem.
except the initial (and highest) heat of re-entry isn’t from friction with the air, it’s from the air being compressed as you fly through it at a speed several times higher than terminal velocity. i’m lazy or i’d look up the youtube video that explained it to me. although… hmmm…
[ nine seconds later]
okay, this isn’t quite right, but you should be able to glean the basic idea from this original ludicrous question answered completely straight and scientifically.
This is actually why the nose cone on reentry craft is rounded – to trap more air (which seems counter-intuitive* at first) in the compression area. The additional air helps dissipate the heat from the tiles on the craft faster than having a pointed nose, which would be heated basically the same amount (doing the same amount of work to displace the same amount of air) but have less matter to transfer that heat back to.
* rocket science is the measuring stick of complication for a reason.
+1
Wonderfully succinct and cogent explanation.
Hilarious commentary in the annotation.
Ditto.
+2
Rocket science always gets me.
But compression still isn’t a problem if you can mitigate the speed, which Sydney can easily do.
+1
I never said it was a problem. Consider if she is being chased by ships, and she uses the friction of the atmosphere against them… Fun times… ^_^
Is that “you’ve” in the last panel supposed to be “you’re”?
Nope, “you have” not “you are”
Okay, reading the full sentence, it should be “you are” as it is written
For it to be “you have” would need to remove ‘orb’ or replace it with something else, like ‘ability’ or ‘feature’
Dealer’s Choice:
1)_Either change “you’ve” into “you’re”,
… or …
2)_put a comma after “cartography”.
… either way, it still reads as “talking to an inanimate object”.
I read that as talking to herself, using the second person, as in:
“Sydney, I really hope you have some sort of stellar cartography orb,…”
Sydney talks to herself using this syntax on several occasions in the past – I know folks (and sometimes I am one of those folks) who speak like this. It’s odd, but not unprecedented.
Man, somewhere in space would be a really inconvenient time for the Orbs to go into upgrade mode; hopefully they don’t go into that mode when they are in active use.
They seem to wait, at least one second, after no orb is in use to activate load the tree.
So, I notice that Mecha-Cthulhu’s weapon takes a bit to charge up. Perhaps we may speculate that this is one of it’s most powerful weapons since it takes charging up. Sydney’s shield orb still has at least one tick to go for what we may assume is it’s power rating (not even counting what might open up once she fills in more ticks), and who knows how it progresses in it’s power rating (exponential perhaps?). So possibly Mecha-Cthulhu’s Devastator Weapon O’ Doom just strained the Orb’s shields and it just repaired itself. If it meets Sydney a few years later, she might be laughing off his pitiful attempts.
If Mecha-Cthulhu is used to being the big guy on the block, no wonder he is a little put out.
I don’t know what the paths not taken do, but being able to “cast” a shield onto other people or things would be a nice power-up. Have the Devastator Weapon O’ Doom detonate in close confinement with Mecha-Cthulhu, so that it alone suffers from its effects…
Yea it would have been handy against Vehemence, rather than Sydney having to risk her life being in the shield with him.
Likewise for containing Harem’s evil counterparts.
“What evil counterparts?”
Just get your Super Genre 101 Handbook out, it’s a rule!
A hero is defined the he gallery of rouge they accumulate
As stated by the greatest villain Gotham has ever seen: Blatman, so great he has the police, and real heroes, believing he is a good guy rather than a delusional psychopath with a flying-mammal fetish
I think that Sydney’s shield is actually a pocket dimension of some sort. It would explain some things.
Kinda like how The Doctor’s TARDIS isn’t a ship? The TARDIS is a pocket dimension’s front door. Just… Sydney’s has windows?
Oh, please! NOT Windows. This would be a time when the blue screen of death was literal!
Yea, space is not a good place to be opening windows!
So based on the concept that Sydney unlocks abilities on the prb based on experience… how much XP is being stranded on an alien planet with an invasive alien whiped out the original inhabitants worth?
Hoping she gets the time to pick her upgrades with more care next time.
And that the update process doesn’t start while she’s fighting off alien brain suckers.
Some comments already on the multi-appendage alien approaching and what that might mean about its relationship with the orbs, but I had a couple new thoughts while looking at it.
1) It’s climbing into the crater in preparation to continue attacking, which is by definition inside the blast radius of its second shot. Generally a bad idea to shell your own position (no matter what Maxim 20 says), so it probably knows for sure that its own shields are tougher than it’s attack. Or maybe it’s just counting on being farther from the epicenter and is confident it can win a small-scale arms race?
2) The firing array around the alien’s head reminded me of
Budget HaloHex’s firing array, which made me compare it directly to Halo’s array. 7 orbs for her, 6 energy points of some sort on the alien’s neck… plus one on/in its head, 7 total. Which happens to be glowing red while it fires energy blasts, and the PPO is also red… Could it be that this alien is using an identical set, and is trying to recover lost (and/or sacred) tech presumed stolen by enemy forces?Or even worse, are the orbs a natural part of the alien’s physiology (or containers interfacing with harvested organs) and Sydney is walking around with the weaponized equivalent of a shrunken head, extracted from a desecrated burial site? Either situation would explain why she is being engaged with extreme prejudice.
It’s an alien death machine that went for “shoot first and ask questions later” in the middle of a ruined planet.
I don’t think it needs a reason to exterminate with prejudice, I think it’s (at least partially) why the planet got trashed, and I kind of doubt ‘calm discussion’ is in its decision making process.
Sydney seems far too calm, I wanna see her panicked flailing
this is actually a rather realistic, non-humorous example of an intelligent ADHD case under pressure. after the initial shock wore off, the focus level shoots way up, usually noticing relevant details in time to make use of the information, but also fixating on one detail, one task, at a time (no matter how short that time is) in near or total exclusion of everything else.
my source for this information is being an ADHD afflicted (gifted?) cook for the last 21 years. you want stress and a plethora of things competing for your attentions? you got it!
mind you, once she’s well underway, say, half an hour post atmosphere, i fully expect her to actually recognize the significance of the events that just transpired, and freak accordingly. which is also in line with her observable Type4 ADHD.
And it’s most helpful and useful when there is no one else around you have to take care of
I don’t know if this has been said but the alien in panel 2 is starting to look a lot like Aku from Samurai Jack.
It would fit the talk about time travel wormholes, wouldn’t it?
Regarding the ‘characters being depicted with their mouths open’, personally find that to be more stupid than having their mouths closed
Have found that most people in real life don’t have their mouths open wide while they talk, and often, surprisingly, close them while talking (specially if they need to breath to talk and are not mouth-breathers), being able to see their teeth (let alone their tongue or, worse, tonsils) is very rare unless they are emphasising what they are saying so the idiot public can ‘read their lips: no new taxes’ (and even then, way too many idiots got it wrong)
If Sydney is a spaceSHIP, someone should smash her with a champagne bottle.
If she drinks enough of that champagne, she’ll be properly ‘smashed’ indeed!
;)
:)
A fluid storage device is a vital survival tool, which Sydney should take care not to damage!
She can splash a handful of champagne, on the shield, for morale purposes, though.
3 weeks without food.
3 days without water.
3 hours without shelter (in adverse conditions, on a planet)
3 minutes without air.
3 seconds without hope.
Sydney has passed the first time-critical hurdle. She will have no problems with the second. The third Halo can solve with some duct tape. The fourth should be her current priority, as soon as she has confirmed she successfully disengaged.
Well, we know her life support orb can generate a breathable atmosphere and I assume remove/displace unbreathable ones like water or CO2, the question is: Is that all? Could it generate more than N2 and O2? How-about H2O? Proteins, sugars, carbohydrates?
I recall that her shield could eventually run out of air it trapped inside the bubble. When did she gain the ability to recycle CO2?
You’re assuming that the truth oxygen nitrogen atmospheric ball won’t be able to also take care of the cleaning of the air which is an interesting conundrum. However as it is a convenient plot device I think it probably does.
It does. We saw that Sydney was able to keep the air fresh for a protracted under-sea journey.
Although the method may not be the same as we do (i.e. cleaning the CO² out), given that the shield orb automatically adjusts the air pressure, when embigenning or unembiggening. Sydney mentioned that when she had her breathing problem, before discovering the property of the green orb.
Which implies that even the shield orb can dispose of any excess air. So the green orb could literally just create fresh air, on demand, and leave it to the shield orb to dispose of the unwanted stuff.
However it is likely that it does both itself. The flyball duplicates some of the shield orb’s capability, by providing low speed air-buffeting/bug strike protection. So the orb maker’s were not bothered about duplicating powers, in part. It is a sensible redundancy.
Not to mention a good argument that the 2 orb limit is probably fundamental, as opposed to Sydney just having less limbs than the creators. Not definitive mind, as even four limbed critters might want to use a property from a 5th orb. But circumstances demanding that would probably be very rare, so it seems unlikely that effort would be made to cater for that.
What are you all talking about? Don´t you realise that bad luck will fall upon Sydney, for she has launched without being smashed with a damn huge champagne bottle?
https://www.thoughtco.com/ships-champagne-and-superstition-1774054
Has anyone offered-up the theory that Sciona’s imperfect portal might’ve sent them all to the far-future, where Sydney…
1)_ … has lost 1 of her Orbs
2)_ … has been mutated (by centuries of combat) into a huge, freakish alien form, & then
3)_ … met & attacked her far-younger self, because she’s lived long-enough to have studied the nature of time-travelling causality — “I was attacked the FIRST time that I was here, so now that I’m here on the OTHER side of this experience, I should attack my younger self, to preserve continuity.”
1) Partially. Time displacement very often. Loosing an orb though is new.
2) Nope. And I am not endorsing the option! Poor Sydney!!!
3) No. But that would be necessary if attempting to avoid paradoxes. Personally I say f**k paradoxes and just kiss!
3. That’s a pretty standard predestination paradox, and in my opinion, generally bullshit.
My problem with events like that is that they only work from a single reference frame.
The ‘future’ version has already experienced these events the ‘past’ one hasn’t yet. We get our panties in a twist because we see effect preceding cause, but once you start twisting causality in a knot we don’t have to obey those restrictions.
Once an event happens, it did happen. Entropy always increases, you can’t ‘undo’ a thing. It doesn’t matter what future version does to past version, future version still exists as the entity it is now.
To simplify the idea, simply imagine the traveler didn’t interact with themselves but instead picked a third party.
Say you go back in time, and tell somebody to pack an umbrella. It later rains and they don’t get soaked. Later the timeline catches up to your ‘travel back in time’ date. If you don’t go that guy doesn’t magically get wet, he already packed his umbrella, you don’t have to go back and tell him to do it again.
You don’t have to enforce a change to the past, it already happened. It only looks screwy if you limit your reference frame to a point contained in the time travel actions, if you look at the event from outside the potential loop suddenly everything looks simple again.
So that means that you can go back, and ‘take the bullet’, which would have left you with a terminal (but not instantly fatal) injury. Dying in the process, of course. But when you get to the point where you need to go back to save yourself, you can opt not to.
Now, going back to your rain example, rather than warn your earlier self, you could go to a shop and buy a nice gold-handled diamond-studded umbrella. Then go back and give that to yourself, in the morning. Rain protection solved. But, when it comes time to go to the shop, to buy it, you don’t bother. So you get to keep your cash and the umbrella.
Do that every day and you don’t even need to go into work, you can just sell a batch of them to an umbrella shop, once a week. And, to ensure that there is no competition in your area, once you have built up enough money to be able to set up such a business, you can go back in time, to before you first got rained on, and establish the umbrella shop in the first place.
Being sure, of course, to deliver a supply of gold and diamond umbrellas, from your future shopping.
You’re still getting hung up on cause and effect.
Consider the events from the perspective of somebody not involved in the time travel, and its a little clearer.
I am not hung up on it. I am simply using the principles stated. Your principle was giving something to yourself (information), and then not repeating that, with your earlier self. Mine was exactly the same, but substituting an object, for the information.
Incidentally there is zero paradox, in my interpretation, hence I really am not hung up on it.
What you are describing is resolved by using the ‘many worlds’ hippopotamus (it is quite elegant once you get used to its reins).
You are not going back to your own self, you are going back to an identical alternate universe, to a point earlier in the timeline than your present one (in your native universe). You talk to the version of you there and, in that universe, that version of you avoids getting wet.
Your timeline, as you state, has not changed. In fact your own universe is carrying on in a completely unchanged state.
What you therefore did not do was state what would happen to you after giving your younger self the information. You only focused on what happened to them. However you need to consider what happens to you too.
You have the choice of hanging around in that universe/timeline, and figuring out the complications of where you are now going to live. On account of the fact that the younger you is the one native to this universe, and so owns all the toys here.
Or you can go back to your own universe. Where things will have been proceeding as normal, barring your absence from the world, for a while. Your clothes may still be damp, but at least you have somewhere to live, where you can hang them up, to dry.
Maybe you can become pen-pals, with your younger self, and see if the umbrella incident radically changes the course of their life, compared to your own?
No, you are forgetting entropy.
There’s a difference between information and an object.
If I tell you to pack your umbrella and you pack your umbrella, you already had that object.
If I hand you an umbrella, it had to come from somewhere, and won’t be where it came from anymore.
You are now bringing the multiverse theory into it without need either. You *can* use it to excuse perceived inconsistencies in cause and effect chains, but you don’t have to. Like most people you over think time travel problems. Effect can precede cause just fine once you start with time travel.
Your past is always your past, you don’t have to work to keep it your past, even if it becomes apparent later that a time traveler did interfere with your past, but hasn’t yet from your point of view, the interference already happened.
Instead of imagining yourself messing with your past and then needing to go back and mess with your own past once you ‘catch up; to the time travel event, imagine somebody from 10,000 years in the future goes back and messes with your past. Suddenly no ‘loop’.
This is what I mean when I say you only have problems when you view it from a specific reference frame.
Clearly you have not watched the Matrix, if you think that objects are not information.
There is no spoon.
However if you have not taken the right pill you need to think from within the system. So, back to the narrow perspective you have painted yourself into…
Why must I go back and give myself the umbrella? It is already in my hand, I gave it to me earlier and said “it is going to rain, take this”. It is valuable, I don’t want to give it away. I choose not to.
Is the universe going to make me?
No, it was in your hand, and then you used it
It did not just appear out of no where for you to go back and give it to yourself. Some when between you taking it from yourself and you going back to give it to yourself, you had to have picked it up or have it handed to you by someone or something else
I shall have to hunt down this impersonator!
And thank him for giving me this valuable gold and diamond umbrella. Which, nope, still not giving back, mine, mine all mine! Mu hu hu!
Hm… Given that she must keep her hands on the orbs for them to function, I’m not sure if it is a good idea at all to go into space for any significant amount of time. Space is kind of… Big? If she doesn’t find any natural breathable atmosphere before she gets too tired to stay awake, she runs a significant risk of dropping one or both of the orbs while asleep.
Batman approved utility belts include Bat duct tape.
How would she put it on? She could wrap the tape around one hand easy, but then that hand is useless and her other hand still has no tape on it. The tape would have to go around her whole hand because she needs skin contact; so she couldn’t simply make a loop of tape with the sticky side out to stick the orb and her hand together.
We have seen Sydney duct tape one hand, when flight testing. She purposely kept the tips of her fingers free. Although she would not be able to use her thumb (the orb gets in the way), she can actually use the orb itself as an opposable surface, to allow her to grip stuff.
Not having enough wiggle room to use larger tools, or levers, but sufficient for the purpose of duct-taping the other hand. And you saw her making good use of her teeth to cut it to length. Which Sydney managed one-handed, just fine.
The only ball she needs to strap-on for safety is Mr Buble, she needs to be able to freely swap out Florb and the Greenie (and any of the others)
Also with the fact she has to hold them in her hands, how is she able to hold the flight, shield and air orbs at the same time? Or will she have to stop flying to refill the oxygen? Does she even know if she can make oxygen – I notice the description in the top right still has a question mark after “makes air”. She’s putting a lot of faith in that orb.
My guess is she’ll fly above the atmosphere and do a test. If the orb works as predicted, she’s good (ignoring that she’s light years from anywhere, and may not have a means of ftl). If not, back to the surface for the boss fight.
Well, in space if she stops flying, she would just keep moving in the same direction she left off, so once she gets to top speed, she would no longer need the flight orb until she needs to make course changes. At that point she would use life support and shield.
Spot on.
Combine that with the fact that Sydney piloted the Halo-mobile down to the Dark Reliquary, deep under the ocean, on the side of a continental shelf, and we can see she should be able to cope with being in space. At least for a comparable period.
Whilst Maxima helped to provide propulsion, in the under-sea journey, at the times that Sydney was refreshing the air, the feature you mentioned, would be a fine substitute, once in space. Tricky until she gets into orbit, but at mach 4 that should not be much of a problem. The most she would have to do is a parabolic flight, and she practised something similar to that in the long-distance flight to catch up with Sciona.
The “?” associated with the “makes air”, is not to question its ability to do that. The initial pool test proved that. Rather it is to imply that is not the limit of its capability. We know it is not, in fact, given that the skill tree showed it has two skills already active. Whilst air making is the only one we know about.
The most obvious implication is that it is actually ‘the life support orb’. So, hopefully, its other power is to supply food and water.
Along with secondary effects which protect against bone decalcification, muscle wastage, and other detrimental effects from being in zero-g.Actually scratch that. The fly-ball grants local-gravity control, so those are not problems!So lets go for a required secondary power, for the food and water creation skill, being waste disposal. Because otherwise it will be problematic having to periodically empty out the Halomobile. Or very smelly, if that seems like a bad idea, in space.
There are probably laws against littering.
You don’t want to tick off the Xenovarchy!
She’s supposed to be carrying the rebreather from Deus still, so she should be fine for several hours of shielding and flight acceleration before needing to use the air orb (“airb”?).
Actually, we don’t know for sure that the orb scrubs atmosphere at the same time it’s generating fresh air, but it seems like a reasonable assumption. Otherwise Sydney would have to drop shield periodically, which would be a poor design decision. Or if it doesn’t scrub the air, we already know the shield doesn’t change the internal pressure when resizing*, so maybe it allows CO2 etc to leave? With the airb generating new air in the middle, that would make the inside of the shield work like a positive pressure clean room.
* there was a discussion early on with Max about the shield where Sydney talked about the shield changing size without changing pressure. This is one of the only inconsistencies I’ve noticed in the comic, everything else indicates she has to drop the shield to resize. I chalk it up to her inexperience in the early days, i.e. she was making an assumption rather than recounting experimental results.
It is actually consistent. The distinction is whether or not Sydney needs to include others in the shield, when it is resized. If she does, then she has to lower it, resize, then enlarge it.
Whilst she can resize it, whilst it is up, that would just push others away (or fail to expand or deform around them, as various options). So it was handy in the battle, in the car park. Because her orders were to keep her shield up (i.e. she was not allowed to lower it to let others in).
However Halo was also ordered to act as a shield for other members of the team. So having the shield big was an advantage, even without passengers.
If you look through the comic the shield has varied in size and shape, at various points. Noticeably being smaller when indoors or in crowds. Including inside the Steak House. Whilst being big if outdoors or with passengers. Albeit not getting up to the crowd-enveloping size, other than at the press-conference.
However it does very often go torpedo-shaped, when Sydney is flying fast. Which is an intermediate volume, between the small indoors form and the large Halomobile. So the comic has been utilising size alteration quite extensively.
I’ve noticed the variety of sizes and the streamlining, but it’s always seemed pretty consistent within a given page and even across multiple pages in the same scene. Dropping it to add/remove occupants makes lots of sense and almost certainly requires an accompanying size adjustment, but I can’t think of any examples of her resizing Mr Bubble without toggling him off first.
You’re probably right, but if you can point me to an example strip it would put my mind at ease. :)
The best one to check out is the Steak House fight, because it transitions from the indoors to the outdoors environments, under circumstances when we know that Halo did not lower the shield at any point.
In particular because it ends with Sydney becoming giddy and querying why adjusting her shield size does cause problems (like the bends). So this is something that Dave was mindful of, during the writing of the sequence.
I.e. any variance is not down to artistic licence, it is actual changes that were being made, due to Sydney adjusting the size of the shield, to meet the needs of that moment.
We never actually saw her move from inside to outside, and she most certainly did move before it became rubble
I’m wondering how likely it is that the Xenoarchy (or whatever it was that Dabbler called it) is in the area checking out some distress calls from the Alari home world. Perhaps Sydney can hitch a ride.
Of course, if the Xenoarchy believes that Sydney is a truly typical representation of what Earthicans are like, she may just get the planet placed on the Xenoarchy’s “Stay The Hell Away” list.
Lol.
Yea, if it were not such a popular tourist spot, they might get a very wrong impression.
Navigation Orb for the Win!! We take Google Maps for Granted way to much! Time was maps had an edge that NOONE had been past, and boy howdy has Halo gone off the map.
Why the laconic attitude though? She was *terrified* the last time we saw her. Seems a bit odd.
A large quantity of us with ADD get hyper focused and calm when real danger approaches.
I can’t help but think those trying to predict what the orbs are, are being messed with.
I’m still rooting for “control orb” that lets her merge with them… turning her into a bigger badass. ^_^
Oh and if say… the “true site” orb could be used to find earth, since it is sort of an information/scouting orb, it’d make a Nav orb pointless.
Of Course we are being messed with and teased!
The last orb will probably be a closet full of old toys, brooms and tribbles!
Sydney looks so desolate, in panel 1. I just want to hug her!
*looks down at legs forlornly*
given the situation i would be talking to my self out loud.
not sure how many folks have actually been in……lets say one wrong move and you die situations it sometimes helps to go over your options out loud. give you a bit of comfort and focus.
seems her big issue is going to be the time it takes to actually get home even at FTL its gonna be a while if she needs to fly and shes gotta eat drink and sleep. she cant carry enough food and water to make it so unless the last orb summons take out shes pretty much up shits creek.
Yeah, I tend to talk to myself when stressed, so I’d probably be mumbling quietly to myself while looking around for the next thing that wants to try to vaporize me.
There have been a few studies that have been done that suggest two things:
a) Verbalizing, both internally and out loud, assists in clarifying and analyzing ideas
b) people who do well in testing situations and who score well on IQ tests tend to use this verbalization technique more often.
Unfortunately, it’s not a strong correlation (barely statistically significant, in fact), so nothing to get excited about.
I talk to myself rather more than is socially acceptable. But then I embrace my weird.
I always say i’ll get worried when I’m in a three way argument with my self.
Specially if you end up getting ganged up on by two of your other selves, and then they bring out the bats!!
Well you only know you’re going round the bend when ya say huh? in the middle. :)
In software circles, talking yourself through the problem is considered a highly effective to get a clear perspective and actually define the problem clearly, and is known as rubber duck debugging (since the traditional inanimate listener is in fact a rubber duck).
have to remember that. never heard of it before. thank you.
Regarding word balloons, that’s why they usually use ‘thought balloons’ if the person is only thinking in their own head.
In her case I would be REALLY tempted to pull out the PPO and let some of these buttheads have a taste of hot flaming death, but I also get not wanting to push your luck and maybe getting the puck out of Dodge is the best idea.
This is why I love Sydney.
Trapped on an alien world, with no guarantee that she’s even in the same universe (likely, given Dabbler’s comments, but still), and about to get attacked by something that has already demonstrated it can seriously mess up her shield, and what does she do? Does she sit around waiting for help? Does she cower in fear? Does she go offensive in a fear-induced rush to do something?
Nope, she takes action and starts checking hypotheses like a boss. She has faith in herself and her own abilities. She stands up for herself and steps up to the plate, ready to swing for the fences.
Damn, that is totally hot.
No damsels in distress in this comic, makes it a fun read. In fact, sometimes the guys need to have their competence pointed out specifically since so much of the team is female. (At least the part of the team we’re primarily following, there’s a decent balance overall.)
Cool girls don’t look at explosions.
This is how you fly into orbit in style.
(quicc, change “you’ve” in the last panel to “you’re” (unless that’s what you were going for in which case you do you (but i don’t get it…)))
You know, in the fourth panel, she kinda reminded me of Riza Hawkeye.
Think again Sydney. You need:
Flight for propulsion.
Shield to survive.
Air for breathing.
Food from… where?
That’s at least 3 orbs you need to hold onto. Sure, once in space, you can drift on your velocity from the orb, but I assume you want to get home ASAP so you don’t have to worry about food.
But now you’re adding on a hopefully Stellar Navigation Orb Tracer? (Yes, I made that acronym on purpose for her). Shield is a must, you’ll have to give up on air every once in awhile to check it.
The Air orb makes air, she can just fill the bubble with air and then only touch the air orb when she needs to freshen up. And as you mentioned, the flight orb can be let go once she’s in space to just maintain velocity. But yeah, if she accidentally lets go of the shield orb its all over.
On food, that depends on how long it takes (and the air orb might be able to make things other than air?) My main concern is that unless the flight orb has FTL capabilities, this is not a journey she can make in her lifetime.
So begins the voyages of the starship Scoville, her continuing mission to get Home.
Didn’t Voyager already did that one?
Odysseus did it first (and it took him longer)
Wonder how Sydney’s shield will hold up in space. Remember way back at the beginning of the strip where she critiqued transparent shields against light based weapons. Well space is full of unfiltered UV light and even with our ozone layer we still get fried up pretty toasty after a few hours. Outside the atmosphere you can multiply that many times over. It would nice if she has a sunblock orb, or maybe some fancy shield tinting.
Do remember how Dabbler talked about it. Sydney’s critique was based on a shield that wasn’t advanced enough to have threat criteria filters, and Dabbler pointed out that her shield was clearly capable of such a thing: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1630
If the green orb is life support, then it should also handle food, water, waste disposal and so forth. It obviously handles some waste disposal or it’d be no help with CO2. Food might not mean “food”, it might just mean all parameters are adjusted so Sydney and those inside the travelling space with her don’t get hungry and are maintained at peak efficiency. It would probably also handle sick bay functions.
It would be quite interesting to note that no speed nor distance limits have been found on the telepresence orb. That might count as an FTL travel device.
Out of curiosity, why didn’t you do thought balloons instead, and why don’t you just change the speech bubbles to thought balloons?
No one listened last time, but I’ll bring it up again: Sydney’s orbs have her use Anime / Video Game rules (they’re often the same), and not normal or supernatural ones.
The flight orb will probably get her home. The speed might be “percentage speed”. Don’t apply physics, they won’t work here. You go 10% of the distance to your intended destination per hour, but with a minimum threshold (the secret places she didn’t know the locations of so the destination was where she already was due to her guide so instead it used the other tree arm being Mach).
Go from the alari homeworld to human homeworld, so sure it’s vastly over the speed of light, but Star Trek has warp bubbles around the ship and Sydney has a very similar shield. Her speed is a download progress bar, not a physical measurement.
Interesting theory, similar to the speed of plot trope but not quite the same.
I wonder if she could game it (and you know she would try if it came up) by reversing Zeno’s dichotomy (the most famous of his several paradoxes) and setting an overshot destination. “Hey orbs, I’m totally going to fly to the moon now… Oh wait here I am in Paris already, cancel the rest of the trip.”
Go up.
Always a good option, one of my go to options.
Lost in a forest or jungle or mountains? Fly straight up and see if there is anything around you can reach or see that would be helpful, even if you can’t see a village or signs of civilization if you can find a river that is immensely helpful as rivers always lead to people.
Trapped deep underground? Go straight up.
Bottom of the ocean? Go straight up.
Surrounded by an army of enemies? Go straight up (then carpet bomb them like an angry god).
Trapped in Hell? Go up.
Of course the above all supposes a set of other powers as well.
Flying up during a battle actually not a very good idea unless you are travelling very fast. Especially with the exotic/high-velocity weapons Archon is likely to face. There’s no cover in the air, and you attract a lot of attention.
The “person as spaceship” powers trope is one of my favorites. One of my Marvel Heroic RPG characters literally got fused with her starfighter in some kind of hyperspace anomaly, so yeah, she’s basically got the same suite of powers. Except they weren’t really meant for a human frame, so while she can travel at mach speeds in an atmosphere, it drains her batteries pretty quickly shielding against the wind resistance.
I know you’re a fellow Gold Digger fan, and Fred has described Stripe’s Symbiot based powers as basically a starfighter. It’d be awesome for Sydney to bump into him at some point and compare notes ;)
Suppose the next orb is not merely a map, but an actual AI which can be used to somewhat automate the other orbs and monitor the health of the user?
Sydney already talks to herself, lets throw in someone whose always there as another foil for her commentary.
I still don’t think it would make sense for the last unknown orb to be a ‘stellar cartography’ sort of orb, since she has other orbs which would seem to be able to do that sort of thing as a secondary/tertirary/as-yet-unlocked power, like the flight orb, the comm orb, or the ‘life support’ orb, which might just be a shipwide computer orb. Seems odd to have an entire orb just dedicated to ‘where do I go from here’ like a universal GPS orb, considering how many pips and pip lines are still not filled in on the other orbs.
So far we know the following about the orbs:
Fly Orb – Has 4 strings tied to the main orb, and a second string tied to one of the primary strings of pips. The first string of pips is CLEARLY flight speed in machs – 4 pips, and her speed tops out at Mach 4 seems too coincidental otherwise. Once the fifth pip is filled out, it looks like it’s designed to open a SECOND set of 4 pips and then a ‘special’ fifth pip (signified by a double line instead of a single line, and there’s a little line trailing off from THAT pip to areas unknown. The second set of pips is, at least on an educated guess, probably light speed (or MUCH higher levels of mach speed at the minimum) since the first set of pips is speed of sound levels. The second line is filled in 2 out of 5, but there’s no telling what that signifies, although it MIGHT have something to do with her immunity against vertigo and her balance while holding the orb. Maybe sense of direction might be unlocked with further pips on that? The third set of 4 pips is totally un-filled, so there’s no telling what that is for. There is also a ‘special’ single pip, similar looking to the pip which Sydney filled in on the comm orb which wound up being for teleportation. So…. maybe it’s for opening wormholes/hyperspace/folding space? Just a guess.
There’s also a filled in pip between the fly orb and the PPO (I can say it like that, I know I’m hip and I have cred to prove it).
PPO – This is the ‘weapons’ orb, if we’re going by spaceship stuff. There are 3 strings coming out from the PPO – the first one is unfilled, and it’s again another ‘double lined one, similar to the teleport pip on the comm/lightbee orb. No idea what it does for weaponry though. Anybody’s guess is as good as anyone else’s here. The second string of pips is a line of 5 pips, three of which are filled out. That’s probably intensity of the blasts possible. Even at 3 out of 5 pips, it seems to already be pretty powerful. The third line is a ‘star formation’ of pips – with 6 lines of 2 pips each. We’ve already seen what one does – it represents the TYPE of damage apparently. At least one line seems to be fore laser type damage – either cutting laser (the thing she started with) or multi-blast (the thing she got after the mannekiller fight).
Hentorb/Violator/Pseudopod orb – Closest I can tell for this orb in a spaceship would be the robotic arm, or tractor beam tech, etc. If it CAN do tractor beams, that would be something she had not yet unlocked, but it would probably go under this orb. There are 5 strings of pips in this orb, four of which have at least one pip filled in, so if there IS a tractor beam, it is probably connected to the fifth, unfilled solitary pip (again like the teleport power pip for the lightbee orb). For the other 4 strings of pips, two of them have 5 pips each, one of which is filled out for either of them, one of which has 4 pips, of which only one is filled out, and a fifth string has 5 pips then a connected double line 6th pip (currently greyed out) – of which 3 are filled in. I have no idea which pip strings here would handle strength of the pseudopod orb, but one probably represents how much she can lift with it (which is currently about 16 tons, so it might be one of the one-filled-in pip strings, and one of the strings probably represents the distance that the pseudopod orb can travel (which we know from the parking lot fight against Vehemence must be PRETTY FAR, since she was able to grab Anvil even when she had been thrown HIGH in the air. No idea what the other strings would be for though. Maybe being able to create constructs, like a Green Lantern? Create energy effects (non-weaponized?) Who knows.
The Comm Orb/Lightbee Orb – So far this orb seems to have the most varied stuff. It seems to be the communications orb as it’s primary function, although from what we’ve seen, it has other funcitons extending from that primary function of communications, including teleportation, truesight (REALLY good sensors), and holographic duplication. It also has the most strings coming out from it, which makes me seriously wonder if it’s the ‘shipboard computer’ orb. It has 7 strings coming out from it. Two of the strings are single pip strings (one being double lines, the other being a single line). The single lined one-pip string is clearly teleportation. We know that for a fact. It only works when the holographic duplication is active though. We have no idea what the double-lined single pip string is for, so I’m not going to guess, but it probably does a pretty unique and functional power which doesnt require ‘gradiants of power levels, just like the teleportation doesnt require it, since it’s only ONE pip. Maybe phasing through objects, although that would sort of be redundant given that Sydney can do that with the holograph anyway, so it’s probably NOT for that. For the other strings – one is 4 pips, all unfilled, so we have NO idea what that string does, and any guesses are pretty random. The next string is 5 pips, four of which are unfilled. That’s probably the holographic duplication orb. It’s reasonable to guess that it might represent the sensory feedback of the holographic duplicate – since Sydney said she can see, hear, smell, etc but can’t touch. At least it’s a reasonably hypothesis. The third string is another string of 5, but only one is filled out. I’ll mention my guess for this after mentioning the fourth string. The fourth string is an odd one because it’s a string of 2 in one branch, and and connect also to another string of 4 in another branch – none of those 4 are filled out. Either this string of the third string are likely something dealing with being able to alter the appearance of the duplicate, or maybe create other illusions/holograms/etc. Not sure which is which, or maybe they both can do both of those things together, or maybe the one with branches can do both of those on its own and no idea what the other string does (alter mass size of the duplicate? Non-organic matter replication? Harem-type duplication? Who knows. All good guesses.
The fiffh orb, which we now know is the life support orb has only 3 strings. The first string is a single double-lined pip. Maybe it monitors Sydney’s lifesigns. Dunno. I don’t think it’s the one in charge of creating air, because I think that might be the second string of pips, for different TYPES of environmental controls. Or maybe it creates nourishment for the user, like a food replicator but more automatic. Or maybe that’s what the third string of four pips does, but I have no idea on that since nothing’s filled in at all on that string. One other very interesting thing about the pips of this orb is it’s the ONLY orb where the double-lined ip is filled in. All the other double lined single pips are not filled in. So… the idea of it being a pip that creates ANY life-sustaining atmosphere is a good possibility, if it’s not a function of the one with 3 pips in a string, although the idea that it monitors Sydney to see what she needs (in this case air from the second string of 3 pips) might fit the same function.
The F-You unknown orb also has 3 strings, but they’re weird. One is a double lined single pip, which is not filled in. The other two are zig-zaggy strings of 5 pips each, in mirror image of each other. One has two filledi n, the other has one filled in. There’s no way to tell what they are aside from making random guesses which have NO foundation until we see more.
The last orb is the one which has been most useful to Sydney so far. And probably the most powerful one as well that has been used. The Force field Orb. The Forb. It’s unusual in how its pips are laid out though. It has 4 strings of pips. The first is, AGAIN, a double lined single pip (apparently EVERY orb has a double-lined single pip string, although the only one that has it filled in is the life support orb). The second string has 5 pips, three of which are filled out. But here’s the unusual thing. I’m almost convinced this is the one that deals with shield strength, although my problem then is what part of this orb deals with embiggening? Possibly the filled in pip on the inner circle? Or that string of 5 pips has nothing to do with shield strength and the shield is just a constant strength, and the pips on this string are representing what the shield can do- turn on/off, embiggen, and some other function which we don’t know. I think my first guess is more likely though. The other two strings for this orb include a single pip string, which is unfilled, and a 3 pip string, which are also unfilled. The three pip string, which is unfilled, also has something unusual – aline trailing off into ‘who knows where’ (similar to one of the pips on the fly orb. I’m hoping one of these strings, or one of the unfilled pips on the existing partially filled in string, lets Sydney put shields around another object without putting it also around herself (like a portable brig).
Anyway, that’s my take on the orbs, an why I do not think that the unknown orb is some sort of star map function – I think that would more likely be one of the other orbs. But if it is, it seems sort of like a waste of an orb. :)
Actually one correction to my previous post.
For the comm/lightbee orb, the string with 2 pips doesnt ‘branch out’ after the first pip. I see from one of the later panels close-ups that it actually is a 2 string pip, which THEN opens up a new 4 pip string, similar to how the 5 pip string of the fly orb opens up another string as well.
Second edit to my post.
Another possible power, in the Forb, would be the ability to camoflage her shield – basically making it like a cloaking device, or adding difference in opaque-ness. Which is sort of alluded to in the beginning of the comic in the role playing game that Sydney starts rules-lawyering about.
Your post has inspired another theory, in me.
All those ‘strings’. Clearly a true master will be able to use the orbs (or maybe the skill tree) as a musical instrument! The Music of the Spheres. Pythagoras probably knew more than he was letting on. ;-)
I can see why you would pick up on the possibility of the orbs having an AI orb. And it is plausible that it may be activated now, with Sydney talking to it. Although it clearly is not a very flexibly programmed intelligence, as it has failed to respond to previous occasions that Sydney has talked to it.
Although it may just be very sensitive and have not liked being sworn at and put on the List!
In this case though, with Sydney suspecting she may be in a starship, she has an edge in knowing the right turns of phrase which may get a ship-board AI to respond. Especially if its makers valued privacy and did not leave the AI listening in all the time. So the first command may need to be the one for it to start listening to other commands.
“AI activate. Ship’s computer on. Emergency situation help required.”
“Hello I am the Personal Orb Based Interstellar Vessel Artificial Intelligence System. How may I help?”
“Ummm, do you have a name, or should I call you Pob?”
I’m going to hope that the orbs stick to her hands while she is using them because it would not be good to fall asleep in space and lose contact with the life support orb.
Odd thought: How many hands did the creators of the Orbs have? I mean, we have a precedent for four. It’s too bad Sydney can’t loan the orbs to anyone (besides Varia, presumably), because I’m curious as to whether more hands = more simultaneous functions (side note, there had better be some crazy Halo/Varia team-up quad-orb action eventually).
I ask because if she’s going spaceborne, then she is gonna have to stop every so often to grab the air orb. Which, since we don’t know how her flight actually works, means she’ll either stop or at least take her metaphorical foot off the gas (speaking of which, what the hell is powering these nutty things?). Orb juggling is gonna be a pain in the ass.
I’ve been thinking on Sydney’s powers under the assumption that she’s primarily limited by lack of levelling – ESPECIALLY in the center connects-orbs-to-each-other rings and lines. Here’s a good copy of her skilltree for reference: https://www.deviantart.com/davebarrack/art/Halo-s-Skilltree-Wallpaper-02-428874048
My working idea is that there are at least passive benefits to orbs which have had their connection points purchased. Sadly, there’s not a lot of data yet to work with.
There are only two inner-rings points spent, and one adjacent-orb connector points.
1. Inner-Ring – Shield
2. Inner-Ring – Flight
3. Adjacent-orb connection – PPO and Flight. We’ve only seen Sydney attempt this combination once, against the tank.
I assume the very center is lit up due to points #1 and #2 above being purchased.
The inner ring point placements are also interesting, as they might be implying relationships to their opposite-side pair. In the case of Flight orb, its opposite pair are Comm and Air/LifeSupport. In the case of Shield, its opposite pair are Comm and LightHook.
I’m extraordinarily interested in the moment when Dave reveals how the relationship lines/ring work…
Ummmm Sydney? I get bugging out of there at top speed, but up’s not the best option when you’re under fire if you don’t know the enemy’s max range. Unless you’re looking to play a quick game of skeet, that is.
Well, so far, the only thing which has been firing at her has been the thing walking along the ground. Whilst we can speculate that the mother ship might be armed as well, it has not shown such to be the case. So Halo’s tactic may well be a very safe option, if it is an unarmed ship.
And she has just demonstrated that her reflexes and flight speed were sufficient to evade a blast at close range. The further Halo gets away, the greater odds that she can dodge successfully again.
Has Audra ever tried using more than two balls at once? Also distance is not a facto since she is misplaced in time ( to many harems)
Who is Audra?
*gasp* you don’t know who Audra is? She’s the heart and soul of this comic, you monster.
I can’t believe you don’t know who Audra is. Everyone knows Audra. She’s the girl. She’s the girl who did the thing in that place! GEEEZ!
*grumbles and walks away, muttering about people who don’t know Audra – bad enough she’s not in the Who’s Who*
What’s more she’s a goddammed national treasure! DANGIT! Harumph I say! HARUMPH to you!
Sydney did try holding extra orbs, and failed. We saw her trying to use her feet and butt crack, as examples of how extensively she tried this. Doubtless including things like trying to hold two in one hand.
Time is one possible explanation. The other is that the wormhole took them to another universe.
Either of which would negate distance as being the problem, as you correctly say.